Online Freelancing on Digital Labor Platforms: A Scoping Review

Online freelancing, a type of contingent work conducted via digital labor platforms, has attracted increasing attention from scholars in the CSCW and cognate communities in recent years. However, there is still a lack of comprehensive understanding in the research landscape regarding this phenomenon. To address this gap, we reviewed 86 papers published between 2017 and 2022 and presented the interim findings. The review followed a scoping method with a focus on three key aspects: research topics, conceptual framings, and methodological approaches. A thematic analysis reveals: 12 overarching research themes, with major focus placed on social inequality, freelancer wellbeing, and platformic management and control; 11 conceptual frameworks that primarily revolved around the worker, work, platform, and society; and qualitative methods emerged as the predominant approach in the methodological approach. Drawing from the preliminary findings, we present three implications for future research: (1) directing greater attention towards unexplored areas within the scholarship on online freelancing, (2) developing novel theoretical frameworks that are specifically tailored to the unique characteristics of platform-mediated freelance work, and (3) employing alternative research methods to holistically address the multifaceted nature of the online freelancing experience.